Laursen, Brett

Friendships convey developmental advantages. Adolescents without friends suffer from a host of difficulties. Much more is known about which friendships are likely to be stable over time, than about maternal contributions to friendship stability. To this end, the current study examines characteristics of mother-child relationship quality (i.e., child reported social support, negativity and relationship importance) and maternal parenting practices (i.e., child-reported behavioral control and psychological control) that predict the dissolution of children’s friendships in a sample of primary school (ages 10 to 11) and middle school (ages 11 to 14) students attending seven public schools in Lithuania. A total of 574 participants (290 female, 284 male) completed identical surveys at six time points across two consecutive school years. Peer nominations provided an index of peer status (i.e., acceptance or liking and rejection or disliking), which were also included as predictors in order to control the contribution of peer status. Friendships were defined as dyads in which both partners nominated each other as friends. Dissolved Friendships were defined as dyads that were reciprocated at Time 1 but one or both partners failed to nominate the other as a friend as a subsequent time point.
Discrete time survival analyses were conducted to predict friendship dissolution from maternal parenting practices variables, mother-child relationship quality variables, peer status variables, and demographic variables (sex, dyad sex, nutrition, household structure, relationship rank). Two sets of analyses were conducted. The individual model explored the degree to which individual scores on each variable predicted friendship dissolution. The dyadic model the degree to which dyadic differences (i.e., the absolute difference between friend scores) on each variable predicted friendship dissolution.

As children enter middle childhood, they become increasing focused on navigating the peer system, which provides an acute awareness of the social hierarchy and their place in it (Gottman & Mettetal, 1986; Parker & Gottman, 1989). Some children even prioritize attaining social status over maintaining friendships (LaFontana & Cillessen, 2010). Status matters because it describes an individual’s ability to compete for and control both physical and social resources (Hawley, 1999). Previous studies have identified two forms of affective regard, separate from the peer group and behavioral reputation, that predict popularity and unpopularity: acceptance and rejection (Marks et al., 2021). However, their relative importance has been unclear because previous studies have not included both in the same model and because most studies have been concurrent, not longitudinal. Affective markers of peer regard and behavioral markers of peer group reputation are moderately correlated, making it difficult to draw conclusions from separate studies of each. Studies which incorporate measures of each are few and limited in scope. The current study was designed to examine the origins of popularity and unpopularity by disentangling affective regard from behavioral reputation using a sample of 292 students enrolled in grades 4 to 6 (ages 9-13) of a university-affiliated school.

Children who are perceived by classmates as being fun increase their peer status over time, but little is known about whether being fun predicts other peer outcomes. Also unknown are mechanisms whereby being fun predicts changes in peer outcomes. Associations with fun, like surgency, suggest that children high in fun are more likely to gain friends while children low in fun are more likely to lose friends, indicating that friend gain and friend loss may serve as intervening links between being fun and peer outcomes. Participants (171 girls, 190 boys) were third to seventh grade students attending a public school in Florida. Across three time points approximately three-months apart, participants reported who their friends were, nominated peers who best fit descriptions of fun and popular, and completed self-reports assessing peer problems. Results indicated that being fun predicted subsequent changes in popularity and peer problems via friend gain but not friend loss. The findings suggest that being fun is a unique predictor of peer outcomes and that friend gain is a mechanism whereby fun children experience positive peer outcomes.

Enemy relationships play an important role in shaping identity, adjustment, and group cohesion. However, little is known about the causes of enemy relationships. The current study identified the role of individual and dyadic attributes in the formation of new mutual antipathies in primary and middle school children (N=372). Participants completed identical surveys at three time points during a single school year. Self-reports described children’s conduct problems and emotional problems. Peer nominations measured children’s popularity, academic achievement, athleticism, and acceptance. The results indicated that enemy formation was driven by undesirable traits at both the individual and dyadic levels. At the individual level, lower academic achievement and higher conduct problems increased the odds of enemy formation. At the dyadic level, similarities between peers on conduct problems and emotional problems increased the odds of enemy formation. The findings, together with previous studies on the consequences of participation in enemy relationships, suggest that problems from enemy relationships contribute to the formation of new enemy relationships.

In the social world of adolescents, friends play an integral role in shaping adjustment. Little is known about what differentiates those who influence from those who are influenced. The current study examined the role of relationship alternatives to determine whether a relative lack of friends increases susceptibility to influence over adjustment outcomes in a sample of adolescents (N=794). Findings suggest that partners with relatively fewer friends were susceptible to influence from partners with relatively more friends over social anxiety and prosocial behavior. Both partners influenced each other’s academic engagement over time. Multiple group analyses indicated that patterns of susceptibility to influence did not differ between partners with fewer relationship alternatives who had no other friends and those who had one or two other friends. The findings of the current study highlight the role of a relative lack of relationship alternatives in susceptibility to friend influence.

Weight concerns challenge the well-being of many children and adolescents. As many as 70% of children report body dissatisfaction (Tatangelo et al., 2016). By adolescence, weight concerns are normative (Davison et al., 2003; Field et al., 1999). Negative weight-related cognitions are troublesome because they lead to emotional and behavioral maladaptive functioning and most importantly, unhealthy weight-control behaviors (Neumark-Sztainer et al., 2006; ter Bogt et al., 2006). Rejected children are especially at risk for body dissatisfaction, however the order of effects is not clear (Mikami & Hinshaw, 2006; Rancourt & Prinstein, 2010). Regression analyses were conducted to test the hypothesis that peer rejection predicts weight concerns in primary school age children, and that this association is moderated by emotional and conduct problems. Results indicated that peer rejection predicted weight concerns in 5th grade children, and low emotional problems strengthened this association; conduct problems predicted weight concerns in 3rd grade children.

Loneliness is a common experience for many people (Rubenstein et al., 1979) and most lonely individuals experience a variety of comorbid disorders (Heinrich & Gullone, 2006). Adolescent loneliness is particularly problematic, due to the rapid changes that take place in the peer social world (Laursen & Hartl, 2013). Prior evidence ties loneliness to low group status and victimization (Asher & Paquette, 2003), but we do not fully understand the transmission mechanisms. A full longitudinal mediation design (Fritz & MacKinnon, 2012) was used to test the hypotheses that social withdrawal mediates the association from loneliness to changes in peer status and peer difficulties victimization among adolescents. Results indicated that the longitudinal associations between loneliness and peer outcomes were mediated by social withdrawal. Successful engagement with peers is vital to navigating the complex social world of adolescence, thus the results provide an impetus for aiding lonely adolescents in improving their social connections.

Behavioral difficulties in the early school years pose a risk to psychosocial functioning. The failure model suggests that peer rejection explains longitudinal associations between aggression and internalizing symptoms. The model postulates that aggression leads to increases in peer rejection, which, in turn, contributes to internalizing symptoms. This study tests pathways posited by the failure model, examining direct and indirect longitudinal effects. Direct effects models examined associations between reactive aggression and internalizing problems, reactive aggression and peer rejection, and peer rejection and internalizing symptoms. A mediation model examined the indirect effect of reactive aggression to internalizing symptoms, via peer rejection.
Because distinct components of the failure model are presumed to share genetic influences, removing potential genetic contributions is important when examining the environmental influences over developmental pathways posited by the model. To this end, longitudinal tests were conducted with traditional (non-genetically controlled) and MZ twin difference (genetically controlled) designs. The latter disentangled nonshared environment effects from those for genetic factors from environmental factors.

Resilience is imperative during adolescence. Previous studies focused on the moderating role of parenting between temperament and adaptive outcomes in children (Karreman et al., 2010; Wang et al., 2016). However, little is known about how personality such as neuroticism affects resilience during adolescence, and how parenting influences neuroticism and resilience at this life stage. The current study investigated the longitudinal effects of neuroticism and both positive and negative parenting on selfreports of resilience in a sample of high-school adolescents in Lithuania (N = 859). The results suggested that high levels of neuroticism predicted declining rates of resilience. This association was moderated by parent support and behavioral control. Specifically, high levels of parent support and behavioral control would attenuate the effect of neuroticism on resilience during adolescence, but only when the neuroticism level of the individual was not high. The findings indicate that the neuroticism erodes the advantages that are otherwise associated with positive parenting. The findings have important implications. Good parenting is effective to foster resilience among children with low neuroticism, but for children with high neuroticism, more attention should be paid to the specific skills that might directly foster resilience rather than relying on parenting.

It is well documented that friends influence adaptive behaviors (Brechwald & Prinstein, 2011). However, it remains unclear how influence manifests itself. The current study investigated the role of likeability and popularity in determining the relative influence that a child exercises on his or her friend’s prosocial behavior and academic achievement in a sample of elementary schooled children (N=679). The results suggest that more liked friends have more influence over their less liked friends’ prosocial behavior and academic achievement. Both more- and less-popular friends influenced each other’s academic achievement. Residualized analyses, however, which take into account the shared overlap between likeability and popularity, suggest that the more-liked friend continued to influence the prosocial behavior and academic achievement of the less-liked friend, whereas more-popular children had no influence over their less-popular counterparts.